


The Court of Delinquents

by Epicharis



Category: The 100
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Band Fic, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-10
Updated: 2018-01-10
Packaged: 2019-03-02 23:49:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13329021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Epicharis/pseuds/Epicharis
Summary: After landing the opportunity for her band to play in The Jaha Bean, the most popular coffee shop in Arkadia, Clarke Griffin's excitement is quickly dampened when she learns they have to share the spot with another band. Still, she tells herself it won't be so bad - until she meets the band's leader, Bellamy Blake, and a rivalry like she has never experienced is set into motion.





	The Court of Delinquents

     “You almost done?” Clarke asked, looking across to Raven. They were both sitting in Clarke’s mum’s garage, though Clarke was perched on an old lawn chair while Raven was cross-legged on the concrete floor in front of the amplifiers that she had made from scratch. Abby had agreed to let them use it as a base to practise, since all the band members were living in university accommodation and she had been pleased when she had seen Raven’s tools spread over the one of the work surfaces. After Jake had died, she had donated all of his stuff to the Redistribution Centre almost immediately in her grief. Clarke had tried to stop her – and had managed to save her father’s watch from the boxes – but her mother had been insistent. Clarke knew that Abby wished she hadn’t done it now, though she would never admit it. A warm summer breeze blew in through the open garage door, bringing with it the scent of freshly cut grass and the flowers from the garden of Clarke’s neighbour, Vera Kane.  
     “Almost,” Raven replied, picking up the pliers from the floor beside her and bending down again to inspect them closer.  
     “I was thinking, maybe we should have waited for Wells to say we could definitely play at the coffee shop before you started working on the amps.” Clarke stood up and leant against the wall, reaching for one of the glasses of lemonade on the work surface near Raven’s tools.  
     “You say that like you haven’t already made the posters,” Raven replied, shooting a smile across at her. Clarke smiled and ducked her head.  
     “Yeah, okay, good point.”  
     “Done,” Raven sat back on her heels and grinned, wiping her hands on her grey skinny jeans and standing up.  
     “Will they work?” Clarke asked, handing Raven the second glass of lemonade.  
     “Of course they will. Who do you think you’re talking to?”  
Clarke just grinned and sipped from her glass of lemonade. Raven was one of her best friends – the other being Wells Jaha, who she had known since kindergarten. She had met Raven after it had transpired that they had both been dating Raven’s boyfriend, Finn Collins. They had both broken up with him and gotten each other from it – which was a worthwhile deal. Raven had been there for Clarke when she had rebounded with Niylah and broken up with Lexa, who had been her first proper relationship since him. Similarly, Clarke had stood by Raven after her short-lived relationship with sleazy Kyle Wick had gone south. The two of them, along with Wells, had a pretty solid friend group.  
     “Wells is here,” Clarke said abruptly, prodding Raven with her elbow. Raven turned and smiled as Wells cycled into Clarke’s garage, admiring his helmet.  
     “Nice headgear,” Raven teased as he dismounted and propped his bike against the wall.  
     “Safety first,” he replied, unclipping the straps from under his chin and balancing it on the handlebars. Raven rolled her eyes good-naturedly.  
     “So what did your dad say?” Clarke asked, cutting straight to the point. Thelonious Jaha was a local business magnate, and one of the businesses he ran in Arkadia was The Jaha Bean, a coffee shop franchise, where Wells worked on weekends and over holidays. The idea that the band should play there was his idea and was, frankly, genius. The Jaha Bean had the best coffee for fifty miles, which they would get for free, plus good exposure to the public. The rest of the band – Jasper, Monty and Harper – had been more excited by the idea of free coffee than the audience. So had Raven. In fact, it seemed like it was just Clarke who was thinking about the business side of things.  
     “He said yes, but there were some conditions-”  
He didn’t have time to finish before Raven had hugged him, throwing her arms enthusiastically around his neck. Wells looked surprised for a second before hugging her back, and Clarke just smiled at the two of them as they released each other and couldn’t help but think they’d be perfect for each other – Wells was a nice guy, and if Raven was going to get a boyfriend then there wasn’t anyone better for her.  
     “What are the conditions?” Clarke asked, and Wells suddenly looked awkward.  
     “Well, it – I mean, it’s not really… Just a tiny hiccup…”  
     “Spit it out, Jaha,” Raven said, watching him with ever so slightly narrowed eyes.  
     “There’s a second band. They asked a while ago, and if he’s letting you guys play he wants to let them too. You guys will play on Saturdays and they’ll play on Sundays, or every other weekend, or whatever works.”  
Clarke chewed on her lip for a moment before speaking, “It’s better than nothing. We can make it work.”  
Wells suddenly relaxed, then peered past them. “Are those the amps?”  
Raven brightened up immediately. “Yeah! Come look.”  
Clarke sipped from her glass of lemonade as she watched Raven explaining how she had built the amps to Wells. Having another band playing at the Jaha Bean surely wouldn’t be that bad.

That afternoon, after Wells and Raven had gone back to Raven’s dorm to watch Apollo 13 (“It’s a cinematic masterpiece,” she had said when Wells admitted he hadn’t seen it, “I have it on DVD and Bluray. And downloaded on my iPod if I ever get stuck waiting somewhere.”), Clarke went to the Arkadia town centre to buy a book for her Classical Civilisation class. While researching her topic – women in Ancient Greece and Rome - for the essay she was meant to write she had found a book that looked like it would be a goldmine of information, but they didn’t have it in the library. The bookstore was huge, set over three floors and the Classics section was one of those on the top floor. She stood in front of the shelves with a printed out picture of the book – ‘Women and the Law in Greece and Rome’ - from Amazon and scanned the books, searching for the title.  
     “Need help with anything?” A deep voice asked from behind her. She turned, then blinked. Whoever she had been expecting, it had not been this man. He was tall, tanned, with freckled skin and dark curling hair that flicked into his eyes that were framed by glasses. And handsome. He somehow managed to make the unflattering bright yellow polo of the bookstore uniform look flattering.  
     “Do you sell this?” She asked, regaining her composure after a split second and held out the piece of paper out for him. He took the paper from her gently and his brown eyes darted quickly across the shelves.  
     “Yeah,” he said finally, “I think we have some copies in the back. Hang on.”  
Clarke nodded as he headed behind the counter and through the door there, running her finger along the spines of the books on the shelves. He came back about five minutes later, holding two books and her piece of paper.  
     “I got the one you asked for, but I brought this one out too,” He held up the second book, titled ‘Life of Women in Greece and Rome’. “It has a lot of the same sources and more, as well as in depth analysis of what they tell you from classicists. It’s more expensive by about $3 though.”  
     “Which one would you recommend?” Clarke asked, her eyes flicking quickly across his face as he looked intently at the books.  
     “The more expensive one,” he replied immediately, then added: “I mean, this one’s good. But it’s basically just a glorified sourcebook and if you had time you could find all that on the internet. The literary analysis in this one makes up for it being more expensive. In my opinion.”  
Clarke nodded slowly, a small smile playing across her face. She found passion infectious, and he clearly loved the subject.  
     “I’ll get that one then.”  
     “I’ll ring it up for you,” he smiled, though it was a standard customer service smile. He slipped the original book she had been looking for into place in the shelves before heading over to the till.             “How come you didn’t just buy it online?”  
     “You should support your local book store, right?” She replied, digging through her bag for her money.  
     “Right,” he said, the corners of his mouth tugging upwards slightly as he scanned the barcode. It wasn’t quite a smile, but almost.  
     “Besides, if I had I would have ended up with the glorified sourcebook with no literary analysis, which would have been a disaster.”  
He smiled properly this time, ducking his head slightly and pushing his glasses up his nose when they slipped down. “That’s true, but not on my watch. Cash or credit?”  
     “Credit,” she answered, and he nodded. She paid quickly and slid her card back in to her purse. He slipped the book into a bag and slid the receipt and paper she had brought in with it.  
     “Enjoy the book,”  
     “Thanks, have a nice day-” she glanced at his name badge, “- Bellamy.”  
     “You too.”  
She nodded, picked up her bag and left, glancing back once. He had already left the desk though and was standing next to an older woman by the same shelves.

The weekend rolled around, and Clarke was standing with Jasper, Monty, Raven and Harper in the corner of the Jaha Bean that had been cleared for them to set up. Jasper was already on his third cup of coffee, spinning a drum stick around in his slightly shaking hand. Raven and Harper were both ready, guitars in hand while Monty was behind the keyboard with his own coffee cup on the windowsill next to him. He and Jasper were such caffeine junkies. Clarke smiled at them all before turning back to her microphone and tapping the end of it.  
     “Hey, guys. We’re The Court of Miracles, and we’ll be playing for you today. Enjoy.”  
She turned and nodded to Monty who played the first few bars solo. No-one knew why the band was because The Court of Miracles. Jasper and Monty had been entrusted with the task of naming it and got high to encourage their “creative juices”. They had written down three pages of names, and The Court of Miracles had been the least horrible. It was meant to be an interim name, but ten months later they were still using it. When Raven and Harper joined in with Monty, Clarke opened her mouth and began to sing.

     “Nice set you guys,” Wells enthused two hours later when they had finished and were sitting on the sofas near the window with a cup of some form of hot drink in front of each of them (two in front of both Jasper and Monty).  
     “It was alright,” a guy behind Wells said, his hands in his jeans pockets. Clarke leant back to see who had spoken. She didn’t know him, but he was about their age. Wells coughed awkwardly.  
     “Um, guys, this is John Murphy. He’s in the other band I told you about – the Delinquents.”  
     “Right,” Raven replied, shooting a glance at Clarke which said: can you believe this dude? Clarke just looked back, her eyebrows slightly quirked: I know, what a douche.  
     “So you’re the boss?” Clarke asked sweetly, propping her chin up with her hand as though she were fascinated. John Murphy just smiled smugly.  
     “No,” he replied, glancing across the room. “He is. Yo, Blake!”  
Clarke waited until ‘Blake’ got into sight, then paused. He wasn’t wearing glasses and he had swapped the hideous yellow polo for a dark blue t-shirt and leather jacket, but it was undoubtedly the same guy. Bookstore Bellamy, as she had referred to him as when talking to Raven about him.  
     “This is the Court of Miracles, huh?” Bellamy said, his eyes moving right across Clarke like he didn’t recognise her – until they settled on her with a smirk. “I guess that makes you the princess.”  
     “It seems that way,” she replied coldly.  
     “And this is Bellamy Blake,” Wells said, trying to diffuse the mounting tension between the two groups. Raven suddenly looked to Clarke upon hearing the name Bellamy, and Clarke nodded.  
     “Maybe we’ll see you tomorrow, you can hear what good music sounds like,” Murphy said snarkily, and Clarke stood up.  
     “Maybe we’ll convince Jaha to only hire us,” she replied, looking from Bellamy to Murphy. She wasn’t serious, but something on Murphy’s face seemed to tighten. Bellamy just grinned.  
     “Right, and maybe we’ll make you playing here so difficult that you won’t want to,” Bellamy replied, and Clarke sized up to him with narrowed eyes.  
     “The only way I am going to stop playing here is if I’m fired. Got it?”  
Bellamy smirked again. “Brave princess. Enjoy your coffee.”  
He turned away and walked with Murphy to the coffee bar. Raven broke the ensuing silence after a few seconds.  
     “Dude, Bookstore Bellamy is a _dick_.”


End file.
